In an historic decision Monday night, the Dartmouth Outing Club voted unanimously to amend its constitution and change its mission statement for the first time since its founding in the early 1900s.
The move comes in the hope to further "a diverse and inclusive membership, the educational objectives of Dartmouth College and its principal of community, by stimulating an appreciation of nature and environmental stewardship", according to the revised mission statement.
Diversity and inclusion are the main new goals included in the DOC's constitution, the changes to which were approved yesterday by the College administration.
The big push for the move came from current DOC president, Alex Monopolis '03, who said, "There are some things that the DOC doesn't do as well as it could or should do and there are some issues that the DOC has never deliberately focused on solving."
Though Monopolis will only serve as DOC president until the end of term, he intends to write a letter to the Dartmouth community outlining the amendment to the DOC constitution and its purpose.
"The Constitution was to initiate the process of making the DOC more inclusive and less elitist institutionally ... more of a community based club, rather than an undergraduate society," Monopolis said.
Crucial to their identity as an organization, the DOC also included environmental stewardship in the mission statement in order to ensure that the DOC "remains an environmentally conscious organization -- one that uses nature for the physical, emotional and spiritual renewal, but which, at the same time, contributes to the preservation of the wilderness we revere and play in," Monopolis said.
According to Pete Ostendorp '03, a member of the DOC directorate, the principle of stewardship means that "the DOC should not only take from the environment ... but should also strive to repay our wilderness for the enjoyment we have gleened."
Monopolis hopes that these new principles will become "embedded into the DOC ethos."
"The DOC is an amazing organization," Monopolis said. "The new DOC mission statement will be publicized every term to the community so that everyone knows and understands that these are the fundamental principals guiding the DOC."
